Changing persepctives
by redheadturkey
Summary: There comes a time in everyone's lives when you discover a person is not as they seem. Reno centric, eventual possible CloudxReno
1. Chapter 1

The world was coming down around them, the cave shaking as shells came down again and again, causing rocks to fall from the ceiling. The two trapped inside were not entirely enemies anymore, but they most certainly were not friends. Golden spikes drooped into mako eyes as they glared across at the other man, red hair as drenched in dust, sweat and blood as his own. Cloud may not HATE Reno any more, but he still wasn't sure he entirely trusted him.

"Just when I thought my luck couldn't get any worse. . .I get stuck in a cave with you while in the middle of a war zone. Perfect. . .just perfect." Cloud's voice held a tinge of annoyance to it, but that was entirely to be expected considering the circumstances.

The grumble he got in return as Reno began to lift the rocks that buried his left leg were not entirely unexpected either. "You think you fucking KNOW me, do you, Strife? You think I'm this horrible fucking person because of the things I've done, and you think I don't have a fucking regret in the world? You're wrong. . .but you don't know, and ya prob'ly don't CARE."

Cloud's eyes narrowed yet further as he turned away in disgust. "So says the man who murdered thousands with the push of a single button. And did it with a SMILE, didn't you? Watching from the safety of a chopper's cockpit while thousands of people were crushed in the flaming debris." _  
_

The sudden flash in those almond shaped eyes. . .was it guilt? Cloud shook his head. No, there was no way it was guilt he had seen in those bright eyes. Anger then? Yes, that was more likely, but then why was there not even an attempt at an attack, or even so much as a sneer. Instead that face was turned away, as if to hide the emotions flitting across it. The blond harrumphed. He felt Reno had no emotion worthy of hiding.

Until one crystalline drop of salt water hit the cave floor with all the force of an explosion in the dead silence. Another followed it, and Cloud briefly wondered if there was any emotion behind it at all, or if they were mere crocodile's tears. One hand was dashed across the fair skinned face, and the slender frame shuddered, though whether it was anger or hurt, Cloud was not sure.

"You think I'm a cold blooded killer, do you? You think I sleep well at night without a care in the fucking world? You have no idea. Until you've been in my head. . .you can't know. You who sit on your moral fucking high horse, you who are loved by everyone. Where the HELL do you get off telling me how I feel? You have no fucking RIGHT!" The voice was choked, but it held a sneer in it, one the blond could most certainly hear. "And how about you? Who the FUCK are you to judge me, who put a sword in someone's BACK? Who attacked someone from behind? And who's fucking will was so weak he fucking gave the instrument of our fucking doom TO the damn enemy? Did you think I wouldn't find out, Strife? You find out the most FASCINATING things from a drunken ninja."

Cloud's eyes narrowed even more, and he growled back in a low, frighteningly quiet voice. "I was under his control. You know what that's like, I trust. . .being CONTROLED by another. . .being used. I'm certain you would know all ABOUT that, having been one of ShinRa's lapdogs so long." Lips were drawn into a thin line as those blue eyes sparked with the rage that hid deep inside them. "You seem to enjoy your work though. Working for the company that may have been destroying us more slowly, but just as surely as Meteor itself would have. "

"They took me in off the streets when no one else would fucking HAVE me, Strife. Or is loyalty an undervalued commodity now? Rude, Elena, Tseng. . .Rufus too. They aren't just my boss and fucking co workers anymore. . .they're my fucking FAMILY. I know you would fucking understand what that's like too. Or would you, you who fucking tried to hack in HALF a kid who called YOU brother? Yeah, not sure you know what family loyalty is really." The words were SNARLED out in an enraged tone. "And they fucking HAILED you as a fucking hero for it. Me an' Rude saved a couple of kids' lives and no one even fuckin' thanked us, or NOTICED."

"They would have destroyed us all, Reno. They would have manifested Sephiroth, just like Kadaj DID, and destroyed every single life on the planet. Or did you fail to notice the black skies or feel the QUAKES that rocked the city when Sephiroth manifested? I seem to be the only one that can even TOUCH him. It's not like you TURKS were much help, when the two of you got your asses handed to you by said teen." Cloud's voice was tight with a rage almost equal to that of the hot headed Turk, but it was colder, much more controlled.

"Do you even fucking GIVE a shit, Strife? He fucking called you BROTHER." Reno did not even bother to answer the prick in his pride over how Kadaj had beaten himself and Rude up because it was of no real consequence in the argument. "Did you even fucking BOTHER to try to reach out to him, to MAYBE use that affection and respect they had for you to TRY to turn 'em around? I bet you didn't even fuckin' BOTHER."

"And you care why? You who SMILED while you BOMBED two of those you speak of wishing I had reached out to? Who joked about getting off EARLY because you'd managed to make your kill before the end of your shift? Why should you even CARE if I tried to reach out to them or not?" The voice got even colder, with a growl buried within it. All of Cloud's rage was coming out now, and there was likely to be an explosion soon.

"Yeah I smiled. . .I joked. . .was I proud of it? No, I wasn't. There are some parts of my job that would make one lose their MIND if the one doing it connected with it completely. Were you proud when you had to kill? How did YOU stay sane when you set that bomb in the reactor that killed so many? Your hands are no cleaner than mine, really." Another headshake, and Reno's tone had become weary, heartsore. "Sometimes I wonder if any of us who have seen so much death and caused so much death are really sane anymore."

He had no more words now. At least not at that moment. His broken leg throbbed like it had a fire inside it, as he was sure Cloud's arm that had been struck by the same boulder that had broken his shin bone did. "We both failed. . .Hell if you wanna think about it, ALL of us failed. We all fell down on the jobs we SHOULD have done, and those KIDS paid the price."

Cloud chewed on his bottom lip as he wrapped his good arm around his knees. He wondered if this change of heart was trying to take him off guard, or might be genuinely how the Turk felt and Cloud chose to do the thing he had not done with those boys and give Reno the benefit of the doubt. Despite everything the man had done, he was right in a lot of the points he had made, and the blond swordsman figured it was time to give someone a chance to prove themselves instead of killing when someone presented the least danger.

"You're right in that if we'd talked to those kids, or even TRIED, that it MIGHT not have gone how it did. Of course it might have too, and the way things stand now, we'll never know. Kadaj. . .when I held him in my arms as he was dying. . .he. . ." and Cloud turned his own head away, not sure how to say it. "He seemed to want forgiveness. . .and I had no idea how to give it to him. I have a hard enough time even forgiving myself, much less someone else. Does it make me a horrible person, I wonder. . .that I have such a hard time with that one thing? You don't seem to, though I could be wrong."

__

Reno's eyes began to flutter closed, only to flicker back open again at a gentle shake from his companion. Cloud, despite how much anger he STILL held for the man who had done so much damage to so many lives, had to admit that Reno was right about one thing. His hands were no cleaner than the little Turk's, and he had no right to pass judgment on the man. His head turned at the sound of voices above them.

The roof of the cave suddenly broke away to reveal bright sunlight, and faces lined up on each side of the hole that had been excavated into the roof. Elena, Tseng, Rufus, and Rude peered down from one side, while Tifa, Denzel, Yuffie, Barret and Vincent looked down from the other. As they had in Wutai before when one of each group had been in danger, they had worked together this time as well. "Well, ya gonna get 'em out, or are ya gonna sit there an' stare at 'em all day? Get a damn MOVE on, Shera's got dinner cookin' an' she'll have my hide if I'm late!"

Cloud pinned Reno's eyes as soon as the group moved away to get stretchers so that they could be transported back to the Shera. "You're right in one thing, Reno. .. .and it is a thing that says we are really not so different as I tried to make myself believe when I passed judgment on you that way. We have both done the wrong thing with good intentions, and the only difference is that I had enough friends to spin things so my doing the wrong thing looked like it was doing the RIGHT thing. " It had taken a LOT of courage for him to admit that, more than anyone would ever know.

"You saved LIVES though. . .I may not like th'fact that ya didn't at least TRY ta reach out to the kids, but I still gotta admit your actions DID save lives. We really AIN'T so different, I guess. We just look at things from a different perspective, s'all." And they were finally freed from the cave in to cheers from both sides in a shell free sky while ShinRa troopers mopped up the remaining terrorists. "Maybe one day. . If th'twoa us can find a way ta see things through each other's eyes. . .there might be hope for th'resta us."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On the trip back into Edge Cloud had had a lot to think about, and he began to wonder what else he might have been wrong about in his assumptions. His arm throbbed like nobody's business, but considering the deep bruising from the falling debris he really wasn't all that surprised. He had, to the shock of his AVALANCHE companions, insisted on riding back in the chopper with the Turk instead of taking the Shera back. That was more so he could think without the rest of them hounding him more than any other consideration, though, especially as Rude seemed to know when to hang back and not bother a person, probably something gleaned from the years of dealing with his partner, who though boisterous, seemed to have those moments when he desired privacy just as much as Cloud himself did.

Ocean became mountains, mountains became forests, forests became plains, and then plains became city as the craft skimmed over the land. It had given him a chance to think, to run the entire experience through his mind and figure it out to some extent. He watched Elena holding the slender Turk's hand as they approached the medical center, and suddenly noted the camaraderie between them, It was like a family, in a way, and he wondered how he'd never noted it before. "It's more than just working together then?" The blond warrior asked the question in genuine curiosity.

Elena just chuckled warmly. She had always been the one that got on easily with most anyone she met, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because when they needed someone to negotiate with someone who did not trust them she could usually succeed where few others did. A bad thing because she had a tendency to talk FAR too much. "Sort of. It wasn't always this way, but after Meteor. . .well, most of us either didn't have family left in the first place, or didn't have any left after Meteor, so we became our own family in and of ourselves. Tseng and Shachou are like our father figures, Rude's the big brother, I'm the baby sister, and Reno. . .well he's the annoying middle child that's always making noise to get people to see him. It's an odd family dynamic but it seems to work."

That actually brought a bit of a smile to the normally stoic former SOLDIER's face. It was a dynamic he himself understood well, as he and Zack and Sephiroth before the general had gone mad had shared one much like it. Zack had filled Reno's role in their little family, while he had been the baby brother, and Sephiroth had been the older brother. Angeal had been the father figure for the group. And again the realization that the two of them were not so different struck him. It was something he had not at all expected to discover.

The touch of skids on helipad was not as gentle as it would have been with Reno piloting, but neither was it overly rough, indicating that Rude was a fair pilot as well. By the time they landed the slender redhead was either deeply asleep or unconscious, and Cloud could not help but marvel at the trust in his companions that it showed that he allowed that to happen. He himself was not certain he would have allowed himself to fall asleep with a threat to his own well being present, even if he did have allies present. Or perhaps the slim Turk no longer considered HIM a threat? That was another confusing thing to ponder upon now.

He watched the doctors take Reno back to have his leg set, and chose to think more on what he had learned. Cloud now wanted to try to find a way to make up for the things he had done to those who had called him brother, but he was not sure how. He shook his head at the doctor who asked about his arm. "It's only bruised, I'll be fine." he assured the man as Tifa and Yuffie came in. Tifa had seen the way he had watched the lithe redhead as they had taken him away. "Don't even try to tell me you're actually WORRIED about him, Cloud." Her voice held a teasing lilt to it that made him smile slightly.

"Not worried. ..just. .. curious." Yes, curious, that was what he was, more than anything else. "Everything I thought I knew about them is supposition and hearsay, and I'm not certain what to believe anymore." Which "them" he meant was left up to Tifa's imagination, but it applied to both really. "What does a man do when all of his long held beliefs have been turned on their ears?"

"You adjust is what you do, and act on the new information at hand." The dark haired bartender gave Cloud a soft smile when she spoke, and she set a hand on his. "You never were very good at adaptation though, were you?" The voice still held that subtle tease to it, as it always had. "Do you regret what you've done? Or is there something else you've been left to think on that you are not sure how to understand?"

He shook his head once more. "I have to find a way to correct what I've done. Both to the three remnants, and to the Turks whom I fear I have severely misjudged. NEITHER are what I believed, and how to reconcile that, I don't know. With the remnants. . .well I fear it's too late to fix the mess I made with them."

"You know it's funny. I watch you now, and I know that something inside you SCREAMS to be forgiven, and to forgive. Perhaps you should deal with the one you CAN clear matters with first. . .then perhaps go to the church, talk to Aeris, as I know you do at times. Perhaps she can arrange a meeting with the three so you can clear that up, too. Worth a try, right?" Tifa's voice held a serious tone now, but it was hopeful, too.

As Reno was wheeled back up to a room after having the broken leg set and casted, Cloud nodded. "Maybe you're right. It's not right to hate someone simply because they have dirty hands when yours are no cleaner than theirs. As soon as he's no longer groggy from the sedatives I'll make my peace with Reno and the remainder of the Turks, then I'll go speak with Aeris."

Cloud's entry was greeted by a slightly cock-eyed smile. "I know, Strife. Ya feel bad ya misjudged us an' ya wanna apologize. S'okay. I misjudged you, too. Maybe we can be friends eventually, ne? Who knows, we'll see when it comes, right?"


End file.
